Flesh and Feelings
by Swiss Army Knife
Summary: Kakashi never imagined you could grow so close to someone while they were so far away. Sequel to: "Strangely Together, Uniquely Apart"
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: The truth is that this is another self-indulgent piece of nonsense. I teased myself with a thought I had about Iruka's doppelgangers in my story "Strangely Together, Uniquely Apart", and this concept so amused me that I ended up writing about another of Iruka's missions with Kakashi. Only this time I left Kakashi behind with a clone.

**Flesh and Feelings**

By Swiss

* * *

At the edge of a red, barren land, a confrontation of considerable gravity was taking place. Its combatants stood toe-to-toe, on one side an aggressively poised professional killer whose very name could cause an enemy to dampen with sweat. Opposite him stood a short-statured, dark haired grade school teacher.

_Two_ short-statured, dark haired grade school teachers actually.

"You want me to stay here with _that?" _the jounin demanded.

The doppelganger visibly bristled, barring its teeth, and the original Iruka gave Kakashi a deeply censorious look. "If I leave Ichi behind, you can send me a message if you need to," he reasoned.

"You _named_ your clone?"

The strength of the Sensei-Glare x2 nearly blinded him. "_Yes,"_ the chuunin said bluntly. "I could hardly call him '_The First'_, now could I?" He made this sound so sensible that Kakashi found himself feeling like a slow academy student. Iruka often had this affect on him.

"I could just come with you," he put in sensibly.

Iruka shook his head, "You know you can't. You stick out too much, Kakashi. _Everyone_ knows you. Hardly a good qualification for infiltration."

It was true, but even so… He threw a disgruntled look at the clone. "I still don't see why you need to leave a doppelganger behind."

His partner didn't deign to repeat himself. Instead, he pointed out, "It's your own fault that you're here, Kakashi."

It was a not so subtle reminder that Iruka hadn't wanted him to come on this mission, but the jounin had his reasons for insisting. He restated his most pressing one now: "He was mean."

Kakashi was referring to Iruka's usual escort, a gruff, non-descript jounin he barely knew except that he was a self-serving by-the-booker who wouldn't hesitate to sit around a league away and let Iruka go off and get himself killed.

Wiping a trickle of sweat from the side of his face, Iruka adjusted the bandana he'd tied over his head. His hair remained shorter than it once had been, but it still managed to stick to his neck when he wore it down as he was now. He spread his arms, presenting himself for evaluation. "Well, how do I look?"

Kakashi tilted his head. For this ruse to work, Iruka needed to appear to be just another refugee fleeing a bad situation or looking for work. Their target was said to be partial to rootless young men – those desperate enough to do any work. Someone from so far away as Konoha would never have escaped suspicion ordinarily, but Iruka could fit in here. His family was from the other side of fire country, but like the coastal area where he had been born, the natives of the western steppe had naturally darker complexions. A little modification, it had been decided, and Iruka could pass.

It was a drier climate here and the locals dressed in loose, coarse cottons – all earthy shades with natural dyes in their colorful sashes. Iruka had chosen a sleeveless tunic with bands at the biceps that he picked at when he wasn't paying attention. Around his neck he wore a cord of flat, closely knitted beads, and though he'd kept his sandals, he'd left his issued weaponry behind. In its placed was a wickedly curving knife bound in plain sight. He was also baring enough skin to make any Konoha shinobi over genin rank feel naked. It was funny how much more obvious the darker skin tone was in compilation.

"You look like a foreigner," Kakashi admitted.

"Flack jackets, the great equalizer," Iruka agreed, not without humor. He had avoided bathing on their way here to look a bit more trail worn, and the veneer of dirt on his face and arms made his smile stand out starkly. "Somehow even _you_ manage to come over only slightly more abnormal than ordinary."

Kakashi peered down at himself. Hm, point conceded. But creeping up beneath his amusement was concern and a deep dissatisfaction with the way this mission was proceeding. That Iruka looked like potential prey wasn't anything to be smirking over.

Divining his thoughts, Iruka reassured him. "Stop looking so anxious. This is going to be relatively painless."

It was actually impressive how little that statement comforted Kakashi.

He reflected on their target: an older man of unknown origin rumored to be performing strange medical experiments. Some crazy, half-mad lunatic like Orochimaru, maybe, though the very thought of the traitorous sannin turned Kakashi's stomach. It was a mission designed purely to gather information, or so it had been said.

His gaze drifted to Iruka's side and had to fight back a twitch of annoyance; he'd forgotten about the clone.

It didn't like him, that much was forcefully clear. But while the being's behavior towards Kakashi was nothing if not hostile, it had proved to be quite attached to Iruka himself. It stood there now, gripping Iruka's elbow with its lips pressed together moodily. If possible, it looked even less thrilled than Kakashi about the proposed arrangement.

Refusing to acknowledge the manifestation, Kakashi turned back to the stubborn chuunin, who, judging from the dark look on his face, was beginning to loose his patience. "Iruka," the copy-nin began in his most reasonable voice. "My mission is to protect you. How can I do that if I'm atrophying by a campfire with a shadow?"

"To begin with," Iruka said, "however your brain has managed to translate your orders, your job is _not_ to protect me. You are my escort; your job _isn't_ to bale me out. It can't be, Kakashi."

The man's voice had lowered, resonating with a complicated kind of sadness. It reminded Kakashi of a plea that Iruka had once made to him, and he grimaced, chagrinned anew as he was each time he was reminded of that disastrous, eye-opening mission.

_This_ was why Iruka hadn't wanted him to go on another assignment with him. And, really, Kakashi did understand. The chuunin couldn't work with someone who couldn't see past keeping him from harm. He didn't need a protector.

Seeing his expression darken, Iruka uncrossed his arms, reassuring him, "This isn't one of those missions."

Kakashi had never struggled with the ninja's role as a good tool of the village; as vessels, as soldiers, and sometimes as sacrifices. But disposable? No. The idea of Iruka as a common, clay container suited only for suffering disturbed him.

There were no words for this, however, and so instead he shifted uneasily, saying, "Infiltrations are dangerous."

With a cocky shift of his hips, Iruka offered him an uncharacteristically toothy grin. "Danger, ha," he said disdainfully.

The farce was comical enough to win the smallest smile from Kakashi, but it did nothing to ease the odd churning in his gut; premonition, unease.

"Kakashi, I'll be fine. We'll rendezvous here in ten days. No more than a fortnight or…"

"Or I should return to Konoha," Kakashi repeated unhappily. Beneath his mask, Obito's eye gave a sharp twinge. He'd have liked to dig a knuckle into it reprovingly, but instead chose to ignore it in favor of grunting with poorly concealed frustration.

Iruka grinned peacefully, glad of his agreement. "Good," he said, and nodded. "That way I won't have to worry about you getting into trouble while I'm away."

Knowing he was being baited, Kakashi didn't even deign to roll his eyes. "As though I were the one with the penchant for trouble. It's well known by now that the village owes half of Naruto and Konohamaru's antics to you."

The catastrophe in Tsunade's office with the itching powder sprung to mind. That humiliating debacle with the explosive tags and tuna paste on the jounin training fields for another.

"I staunchly deny any connection to those mishaps," Iruka said, folding his hands behind his back. "However, we all have our vices."

Vices indeed. Iruka's vice was secret evil; Kakashi had long known it to be so. But Iruka's unique blend of evil was a different variety than that which likely awaited him, and it wouldn't protect him, no.

"You're dampening my moral," the chuunin suddenly accused.

Kakashi made an attempt to look more cheerful, but it hurt his face.

Iruka snorted at the distortion. "Enough of this. I need to go." He reached for his small pack, slinging it over one shoulder and patting himself carefully as though making certain he had all he needed. As he turned, Kakashi thought he heard him mutter a soft command to his clone. Then the teacher stopped, favoring them both with a brief wave. "See you in ten days, then. Look after him, Ichi!"

The unfortunate pair watched him go until he was out of sight, gazing after him mournfully as though both had serious doubts about the wisdom of what they were doing. When Iruka had finally disappeared over the straight-lined horizon, Kakashi turned hesitantly to the being standing beside him.

"Ah," he began, not certain what one said to echoes.

But the doppelganger didn't give him time to collect his thoughts into something more profound. Scowling, it pivoted and stomped out of the camp without looking back.

"You're keeping watch, then?" Kakashi called after it, then frowned. They didn't really need much of a watch way out here – a few wards and alarms would have been fine. It was much more likely that the thing just wanted to get away from him.

He sighed. Ten days was already starting to feel like a long time.

* * *

Kakashi woke the next morning with every intention of smoothing things over between himself and Iruka's doppelganger.

Scrubbing the gummy sleep from the edges of his eyelids, he was surprised to find the double was already active when he got up. It was sitting near their fire sloshing a kettle full of water as Kakashi warily approached, falling into an easy slouch, leaning on his heels. The clone barely spared him a glance.

Kakashi eyed the thing with uncertainty. Just what was he supposed to say to the voiceless copy of a companion he wasn't even sure always liked him? "Er. Good morning," he tried awkwardly, wiggling a few fingers.

The doppelganger huffed over his chore, but made no answer. It even hunched and turned its back more firmly away when Kakashi leaned sideways to catch its eyes. The jounin frowned, puzzled by the cold reception. Even the real Iruka wasn't usually so cranky. And this one couldn't even tell him what he'd done wrong.

No one to be easily deterred, Kakashi decided to try again. "Oi, Iruka-like double…thing?"

Now the creature was openly scowling at him. The familiar expressive face glared daggers, undoubtedly imaging him being pierced by something unpleasant. But at least it was looking at him.

"This is a little weird," Kakshi began, scratching the fine hairs at the base his neck as he searched for suitable words. "But then, Iruka's always been a little strange." He lurched to a halt, considering it. "Ah, that is to say, _you're_ a little strange."

Maa, this was bad. The clone was growling. Leave it to Iruka to have murderous shadows.

Kakashi sighed, giving up on introductions and pleasantries. Obviously it knew who he was and didn't care for him, nor was it feeling very sympathetic about the awkwardness of the situation. Trying to convince himself there was nothing to fear, he set his mouth and continued, "Mm, sorry about that. But you do see my position, right? What am I supposed to do with you?"

The smack that rocked Kakashi out of his crouch was so unexpected that it landed him on his backside in the dirt. A sizzling sound near his hand made him jerk back; he'd almost stuck it in the fire when he fell. 'Iruka' stood over him, shivering lividly. Its anger awakened Kakashi to his stinging face, and he reached up tentatively to stroke his lip through his mask. That thing had struck him!

Still somewhat stunned, Kakashi demanded, "Who said you could do that?"

The double snarled and crossed its arms, unapologetic. Undeniable in its eyes was the sense of having been insulted, as though it was something more than a body that looked and acted something like Iruka-sensei. It was a look that said, 'Respect me, dammit!'

Kakashi blinked. Right. The clone was talking to him with its eyes.

"Something's wrong with you," he said with conviction.

Doppelgangers didn't have self-agency. They did as their originator willed. Apart from them, a clone should have been like a mirage – residual emotion, inclination, and a general drive to fulfill the directions it had been left with. But a self-directed attack out of irritation? No, it shouldn't have been possible.

Their fire pit had been built up next to a large shelf of rock and Kakashi plopped onto it now, irritably favoring his mouth with one hand. A metallic taste was pooling around his teeth and he turned his head and spat. I've been assaulted by a figment of my ally, he thought with disbelief. This was turning into a great trip.

Now that the moment had passed, however, the mercurial brown eyes of the clone had lost their jagged edges and its expression turned to a begrudging kind of regret. It tilted its head, as though trying to get a better look at the mark it had left, and while Kakashi wasn't sure, he had the notion the thing felt guilty.

This thought was confirmed when the creature took the initiative to dig through their pack for a rag and dampen it. Then it came to sit by Kakashi on the stone. A feeble gesture with the cloth, like a flag of amnesty.

"Now you're sorry," Kakashi refused to forgive, turning away grumpily.

Unfortunately, the double was just as stubborn as Iruka himself and was oppressed by none of his notions about personal space. When the copy-nin did not voluntarily present his injury, the clone forcefully turned Kakashi's jaw and so unceremoniously yanked down the mask that Kakashi was too startled to contemplate resistance. Tension easing slowly, he chose to sit still while the other went on dabbing at his mouth with the moist cloth. Privately, he was amused; the determined expression 'Iruka' wore was plainly comical.

When it had finished, the doppelganger nodded at him firmly before returning to the abandoned kettle left simmering throughout the dramatics. It filled a cup, which was then held out imperiously for Kakashi to take. The jounin sniffed, catching the rich, flavorful aroma.

A crest of silver eyebrow lifted. It cooked?

The clone shoved the cup so hard into his chest that a splash leapt up to dot his cowl. He scratched at the damp material irritably, grimacing. Itchy.

* * *

As it turned out, 'Iruka' didn't really need words to communicate. Kakashi had never seen someone whose body language spoke so much. A quirk of its hips, a ruffled brow. And of course, like its original, the thing did know the hand signals that all Konoha shinobi learned, although so far the only thing it had used them for was to swear at him.

Exasperated, Kakashi resigned himself to existence without reconciliation between them.

Sometime during that afternoon he'd sulked off to the only tree in a vast expanse of densely packed earth and shadeless sun. There, beneath the stocky Kurrajong, he'd summoned Pakkun for some sympathetic company.

This had immediately backfired, of course, since the mutt was nothing if not infuriatingly noncompliant. Instead of commiserating with him, the pug had ended up slouching opposite him, glowering with the dourest expression of indifference a canine muzzle could form.

"It's fickle," Kakashi complained, shading his eyes from the light flickering through the waxy leaves. "The mood swings are even worse than the original."

"How many summons do you know that appreciate being treated like an idiot?" Pakkun countered, grimacing as though reliving some personal experience on the subject.

The jounin had a brilliant retort in mind about how Iruka's doppelganger wasn't a summon but an abomination, but was interrupted when said abomination chose that moment to disregard all sense of propriety and slink over to the join them. With no greeting but a bland, vaguely curious expression, it sunk into a crouch between them, creating a triad of confidence.

Pointedly, Kakashi said, "Excuse me, this is a private conversation."

But the only response was a tilt of the head, cheek to palm. 'Iruka' remained, kneeling casually on his haunches. It stayed there, planted firmly, wholly immobile.

Kakashi's eye twitched with annoyance at the blatant disregard of his wishes. "You see." The copy-nin gestured towards Pakkun, his expression somewhat troubled. "The real Iruka would never do that. Butt in. Stay unwelcome."

"Maybe he'd like to," Pakkun said blithely, eyes half-rolling.

Kakashi disagreed. "The man's too damned accommodating." And because the clone looked offended, he continued, "Moody, oversensitive, temperamental, straight-laced, vacillating…"

"I like Iruka," the dog interrupted. "He's capable and clever, but he's not an arrogant meat-withholding bastard like some people I know."

The clone snorted at the description, and Kakashi glared at it warningly. "You stay out of this," he ordered.

Pakkun sighed, sounding very put upon. "Fine, you want to be stubborn about this?" The dog inhaled deeply, an evaluating sniff. When he was finished he simply flapped his loose-skinned neck, saying, "It's Iruka. That's all."

Crossly, Kakashi insisted. "Not quite."

But the dog was having none of it. He said, "Quit being stupid. It's just not _all_ of Iruka."

Meanwhile, the clone – who had been gazing fixedly a the little pug for some time now – finally gave into its impulse and reached out, grinning goofily. It scratched Pakkun's jowls and underneath his chin until the animal was reduced to a low whining growl of pleasure. The dog edged away only when it began to look as though a cuddle was imminent.

"Bit cheeky," he judged, and 'Iruka' deliberately showed its teeth in playful challenge. The summon gave a huffy canine laugh. To his master, he asked, "Is that all, or shall I take my leave?" He made a show of looking at Kakashi's empty hands.

Kakashi withdrew them sulkily. "No rewards for unhelpful beasts," he castigated.

"Humph. I give good advice: Get along. Try not to be unduly insulting. Give it a steak."

"It hit me!" Kakashi repeated in an outraged voice.

"You probably deserved it," Pakkun dismissed his concerns out of hand, waving a paw as though disturbing an annoying swarm of flies. The clone nodded agreeably.

As if its opinion counted.

"Traitor," Kakashi hissed at the little animal.

But Pakkun merely stood on his stocky brown legs, stretching stiffly. "Grow up. Make human friends, if you can," he offered by way of farewell. Then, with a final half-nod to 'Iruka' the dog dismissed itself, evaporating in a pop of displaced air. The clone waved its palm slowly through the dissipating smoke, wafting it curiously.

Meanwhile the jounin let out an aggravated breath. Make friends. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried. He and Iruka _had_ become better acquainted in these last months. Both were intensely private people, but one small crack in the shell had been enough to form a kind of trust, a gradual opening up in small, carefully restricted doses.

If he were honest, it was one of the reasons the clone's hostility bothered him so much. Since their first mission, Iruka had always been kind, approachable, even occasionally prone to tease. His clone, however, reflected none of these outwardly companionable feelings. It made Kakashi feel uncertain, a bit left footed.

Where exactly did they stand?

* * *

Author's Note: Although the process of making these stories available again has been my pleasure, the review count of stories is still a major indicator that readers use to judge whether they will read a story. For this reason, I would very much appreciate if you would share your thoughts, even if your entire review is simply copying and pasting a line that stood out to you. You're wonderful. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

_He remembered how he'd through of Iruka-sensei before. As though he were some feckless, eccentric, bipolar sensei. Somewhat radical; a progressive minded, naïve idealist who had never tasted blood. Soft-hearted, soft handed… Then that explanation of him proved _false_ and Kakashi had been left without answers._

_He didn't understand Iruka._

_Thus he'd taken back up his longstanding mission: demystify the rouge sensei. And what better source to begin with, he postulated reasonably, than Iruka's favorite delinquent?_

_Iruka's involvement with the kyuubi brat had been a subject of off and on rumor and derision for years before Kakashi had known either of them personally. There were bouts of incredulity, indulgent shrugs, cooing mothers, and cruel jokes. However, both boy and teacher roamed amidst these things as if oblivious, though it was uncertain whether it was Naruto who had modeled trait after his adopted guardian, or Iruka who had developed his tough skin as a result of his contact with the boy._

_As the chuunin himself had once ironically explained, they were a clan of two. Their key technique: unmoved-by-the-mean-spirited-opinions-of-others-no -jutsu. They were close, and if anyone knew how to figure out Iruka, Kakashi wagered it would be Uzumaki Naruto._

_He'd eventually cornered his most lively student marching along a wall in the village as if he had somewhere important to be. Knowing better, Kakashi hailed him. His voice had nearly caused the brat to tumble off the ledge, and his teacher had to stifle an inward groan. What agility._

_The memorable interview took place with Naruto sitting, swinging his heels against the stone while his teacher stood facing him in an interrogator's pose. Unintimidated, Naruto had responded to his questions with suspicion rather than cooperation. "It's weird that you're hanging out with Iruka-sensei," the blonde said frankly. As frankly as their topic of conversation would have. Really, Naruto had a lot of inherited traits._

_Kakashi looked at the boy with censorious, narrowed eyes. "Answer your sensei's question or I'll smite you," he threatened._

_Naruto made a face at him, unimpressed. He was a particular irreverent student, and if he secretly harbored any respect for Kakashi at all he hid it well, beneath the underneath, where it was safe from public view. "Why should I help you bother Iruka-sensei?" he exclaimed. Then, more seriously, "I don't like it when you're mean to him."_

_Mean. As if he was any meaner to Iruka than the teacher was to him. But, recognizing the thrum of protectiveness in the normally exuberant voice, he chose to answer honestly. "I only bother him a little. And he likes it. You play pranks on him, don't you?"_

_It was the wrong thing to say. Naruto crossed his arms imperiously. "Sensei knows I care about him and I wouldn't hurt him on purpose. You're not always very careful, Kakashi-sensei," he accused. "You hurt his feelings."_

_That was…interesting. It went in the grossly swollen file of unanswered questions to be addressed later._

"_I'm not trying to pick on him. I want to get to know him better."_

_This gave the genin a moment's pause during which he glowered thoughtfully at the jounin slouched before him. Finally,, he decided, "No. When you want to make friends you have to be nice to them, and it's not nice to gossip or steal secrets. If you want to be Iruka-sensei's friend, why don't you just go ask him stuff yourself?"_

"_He doesn't trust me yet."_

"_You earn trust," Naruto recited. Kakashi didn't have to guess from whom. The boy stuck his nose next to the copy-nin's challengingly. "And not by spying."_

_A seemingly reasonable point. Kakashi pointed out, "But I'm a ninja. Maybe, with ninja friends, spying is actually okay."_

_Naruto appeared to give this due consideration, but finally he only temporized, "There must be a quota. But probably you're already over, Kakashi-sensei." He shook his head pityingly. "It's no wonder you don't have many friends. I can see why you want to make up with Sensei. He's really patient, and he gives lots of chances."_

_Meh, what an insulting brat. "How would you do it?"_

_Naruto tapped his chin. "Erm, mm," he vocalized. "Oh!"_

"_What?" Kakashi asked, leaning forward._

_The youth poked his shoulder rudely, face set. "Stop being so annoying."_

_Kakashi glared. "You really are your sensei's boy."_

_The adolescent smirked, nodding proudly._

* * *

That night as they were settling in, Kakashi had the opportunity to become acquainted with another aspect of Iruka the clone.

He'd made himself comfortable, stretched long and lank across a blanket, which had been laid over a cushion of loose sand. As hot as it was during the daytime, it was downright chilly at night. The wind blew fine particles of dirt that caught in his eyelashes, and he sighed, rubbing them. There was nothing quite like sleeping outside.

The doppelganger, meanwhile, was shifting restlessly foot to foot. It had wrapped its arms around itself and was shaking theatrically. Its shouted protest was clear: _'I'm cold!'_

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Kakashi asked from his supine position. He'd already started a fire. Huffing, the clone gave off swaying and stomped over to their pack.

Dragging out the additional bed roll and blanket, it made its way to where Kakashi had settled. To the copy-nin's surprise and despite his startled protest, the being proceeded to make up his bed right next to the jounin's, and then collapsed onto the bundle with a sigh of contentment. Stunned into stillness, Kakashi remained, wondering at the odd familiarity. But then he recalled that this was 'Senseis gone Wild' – feral Iruka, without his mask or his manners.

Poke.

Kakashi looked down, nose wrinkled in confusion. 'Iruka' continued the incessant prodding of his curled bicep. It took the nin a moment to realize what it wanted. Then, slowly, he uncurled his arm. The double's head dropped on it immediately. Made comfortable by its pillow and the warmth of proximity, the being rolled over and promptly feel asleep.

Pinned, entrapped beside the snoozing doppelganger, Kakashi only stared. "Hm," he said after a moment. He hadn't known clones slept.

* * *

Kakashi had thought the real Iruka blew hot and cold, but his doppelganger was worse – nothing but flesh and feelings. The being was alternately furious and the next minute sorrowful. It was tender, and terrifying, and trouble. And precocious? Yes. There were no walls holding this creature in or anyone else out. Kakashi became glad it couldn't speak; who knew what would come out of its mouth without a filter?

It was somehow still Iruka-sensei, of course. But Iruka-sensei without reserve, as candid and emotional as a child. In that strange informality alone, Kakashi was actually pleased. It had always chafed him that the teacher remained somewhat formal with him, and he found it strange and interesting to see Iruka as he really was, uninhibited.

One morning found the doppelganger pulling things out of their pack in anticipation of making breakfast. The jounin had reconciled himself with some of the clone's unexpected aptitudes: cooking, sleeping, and complaining. Of the three, the one he most approved of was the foremost.

Kakashi rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Ah, Sensei. I love it when you embrace your feminine side."

The clone didn't respond right away, but propped his ear to one side as though listening to someone far away. Then it proceeded to clout Kakashi heavily across the head with the skillet.

"Ow!" the copy-nin sputtered, hands flown to his forehead, which sharply throbbed. Angry, tearing with pain, he demanded, "What the hell was that for?"

'Iruka' sat back and smiled at him contentedly.

Snarling, the jounin rubbed his head fiercely. "Wherever you are, Iruka," he muttered spitefully, "I hope that cheered you up, because you'll suffer for it eventually."

The clone pouted. Its eyes said, _'You deserved it,'_ or possibly, _'Look how clever I am.'_ It shifted the heavy pan over the fire, and Kakashi winced. Iruka-sensei only pretended to be nice. He was really a violent and vengeful creature.

While 'Iruka' cooked, Kakashi sat smoldering with annoyance in the middle of their camp. It was a sparse venue, with only the lone Kurrajong and a few patches of scrubby vegetation to break the monotony of red earth. Beneath their feet, the terrain was more rock than ground, and a layer of thin, fine dirt enveloped everything. Beyond that, the horizon stretched out for miles unimpeded, colored like a parched mouth, pale and dry. Kakashi missed the canopy of the forest.

The doppelganger wandered off after they'd eaten, taking the little winding path to the north. They'd chosen the position of their base partially because of its accessibility to a nearby spring, a priority on the edge of this semi-arid country. Kakashi had been back and fourth from it, to wash or to get water. 'Iruka' often lingered there. Today, finding himself curious, Kakashi chose to follow at a leisurely pace, wondering what the creature could possibly be up to poking around a puddle.

A strangely pleasant scene awaited him. 'Iruka' had propped himself on a nearby rock, its feet dangling into the natural basin. In that moment, the bad-tempered creases had faded from its eyes and mouth as it sat gazing serenely down into the clear pool.

Kakashi looked at the spring, trying to discern what was so interesting about it, but nothing seemed immediately apparent. He approached the other cautiously, unwilling to break the mood of quiet calm. Easing himself down, he nodded greeting, "Hey. Am I…interrupting?"

The being responded with a humorous quirk of the lips, as though to say _'Interrupting what? Me staring at some water?'_ Then it smiled straight at him – Iruka's smile, and for the first time Kakashi considered a different motive the chuunin might have had leaving his mirror behind.

He wondered, _'Did you leave this part of yourself to keep me company?'_

If 'Iruka' intended to be sarcastic, then Kakashi felt justified in giving a retort. "Well, you seemed less unstable. I didn't want to break your concentration."

The double rolled its eyes, but not angrily. There was a spark about it today, a good mood. Casting a smirk in the jounin's direction – _'Watch, watch me'_ – it folded it's hands in a graceful mesh of signs, and then suddenly the water came alive.

Kakashi almost flinched back from the first tendril of water that snaked up in a narrow funnel no winder than his thumb. 'Iruka' rotated its finger in a lazy circle and the element whirled, forming a connected circle. It danced for a moment around its arm like a bracelet, like a snake, then transformed back into the formless spiral. Pretty, it glistened in the sun and burbled with the sound of running water.

Kakashi hadn't known that Iruka could use the water elementals, although he supposed that made sense.

"If you don't mind?" he muttered, peering into the faintly grinning face. When there was no response, he simply lifted the edge of his forehead plate and took a peek. "Ah," he said. It was an incredibly basic trick, like a child would use in a game. The teacher made a thread of his charka, spun on his finger, and drew the water in. Still, however elementary, the clone was exhibiting remarkable control.

"Did you parents teach you that?" he pondered aloud, not expecting an answer. It was a toy.

In response, 'Iruka' made another loop, drawing the water into a swirling necklace. Kakashi reached out to touch it, surprised to find that the surface tension had been fortified so that he could hold the loop between his fingers. Yet it still felt like water, wet and cool against his hand. He couldn't sustain his surprise, however. Iruka always did the most formidable things with basic jutsus.

Mentally, he stored away this tidbit of information somewhere between endless strings of jutsu and memories. Over the past few days, Kakashi had been keeping a running list of things he was learning about clones and Iruka. The list began:

1) Made of evil

This was followed by:

2) Emphatically, _does not like to be ignored_

3) Patient with small children, not so much with jounin copy-nin.

4) Sneaky

And, as the clone took his band of water and slipped it around Kakashi's neck with a smirk, he added:

5) Oddly playful at strange moments.

Still, there were lots of things he did not know – an increasingly deep well of things, wherein the little bits of debris that floated to the top only made him more curious about what lay in the depths. Bemused, he propped his chin on his hand. "You continue to be a puzzle, Iruka."

The clone gazed at him complacently, managing somehow to look complimented rather than insulted. It showed its teeth as though enjoying some private joke, then jerked its head towards the water questioningly. _'Well?'_

"It's nice," Kakashi answered as best he could. He took a moment to inhale the harsh, hot air, so different from the pleasantly temperate atmosphere of Konoha. "It makes me homesick," he admitted. "Funny to think you'd miss something like the feel of rain, huh?"

A peculiar expression wormed its way onto the clone's face, one that Kakashi had a hard time distinguishing. It laid one hand in its lap, rubbing the ridge of its nose with the other. A single nod. Then it took a deep breath.

Kakashi inched backward just a bit. What –

He didn't even have time to complete his thought before 'Iruka' abruptly clapped its hands together, releasing a short pulse of charka. Then the basin of water exploded, the surface breaking with an audible crash. A wake and a wave, and then Kakashi was blinking as drops of water fell in a gentle, steady patter against his body.

It was raining.

Upside-down.

Wonderingly, Kakashi stared at the rippling, dripping surface of the spring, now casting off drops of backward precipitation that hit his down-turned face and hands. It got into the sweaty folds of his clothes, a moist layer over his skin.

Iruka was grinning like a pleased cat, water dripping in streamers from his dark hair. He sat in a loose-limbed, cross-legged pose, face turned happily into the miracle rain. It was just a charka pulse, pulling at the water. A neat little trick. But wonderful. Allowing himself sink into this small pleasure, Kakashi laughed out loud.

An upside-down rain on the edge of a steppe. How crazy good.

* * *

By the time they returned to the camp, the pleasantly cool feeling brought by the rain was beginning to wear off. A gritty wind was blowing from the west, and it made whirlwinds of dust form in the crevices of stone. Soon, their shirts were begin to feel uncomfortably tacky with dampened sand and increasingly clammy as the temperature dropped. They laid out their wet clothes against the large stone and settled in for the night.

'Iruka' seemed to be attempting to be more cordial, as though the water had washed away a little of the animosity between them, or else because Kakashi had somehow convinced it that he had at least _some_ redeemable qualities. In fact it had taken on that half-guilty pose again, and when Kakashi spread out on his bedding, it plopped down nearby, sneaking inquisitive peeks at him.

The copy-nin raised a silver brow lazily, unsure what he should make of that expression. He forced himself to stay still when the doppelganger reached out to pluck gently at the jounin's forehead plate.

Uncomfortable, Kakashi shifted away from the questing fingers. It shouldn't have bothered him; most every nin in the village knew something about the origin of Obito's eye. Even if they didn't know the story, they knew enough not to ask. Iruka himself wouldn't normally have asked; he was too private a person to impose upon someone else's secrets. But the doppelganger just stared at him with a quiet intensity, waiting.

Kakashi rolled his shoulders and redirected his gaze. "Surely you've heard the stories."

'Iruka' looked at him with particularly sharp, clear eyes. It signed, '_Rumor,'_ and then traced the bridge of his own nose as though in example. The meaning was perfectly clear. Visible scars always created talk, but they were like cotton around a wound – protection, cushion. 'Iruka' wanted the truth.

How fate could turn, Kakashi mused, though he couldn't deny that he probably deserved it.

He wasn't sure what it was that compelled him to answer, but the next moment his mouth opened and he began to speak. "When I was younger, I believed that nothing was more important than completing a mission. After all, I'd had a compelling object lesson." His smirk held a hint of pain, even now.

More somberly, he continued, "I lost two of my friends before I realized they were more important than a clean victory. I would have abandoned a teammate, but my friend forced us to go back for her." It was funny now that he thought about it; Obito had always made up an essential part of his conscience, even then.

The jounin breathed, "My friend saved me, died." He tapped his eye, "Anyway, he was an Uchiha. This was his parting gift."

Or maybe a curse. He was never entirely sure if Obito had meant it to help him or as a reminder. It had certainly brought him nearly as much grief as good fortune. After all, it was a fickle fame to become known for having maimed your dying comrade.

He looked up and found sorrowful brown eyes trained on him, real sorrow, the kind that wasn't an apology. Seeing his pallor, his obvious grief, the clone reached out and patted his arm. It was such an awkward gesture that Kakashi couldn't help but bark a constrained laugh. He said, " You know, I hope this isn't the way your treat your brats when they come crying to you for comfort."

The mood suitably broken, Iruka harrumphed as though to say, _'Well, if you'd rather me kiss it and make it better…'_

If only emotional wounds could be so easily mended.

However strange or depressing the conversation, Kakashi had always been one to seize an opportunity when it presented itself. He suggested, "Since you were so nosy, I think it's only fair if I get to ask a question."

'Iruka' looked apprehensive, but nodded hesitantly.

Rather than blurt a hasty remark, Kakashi reclined thoughtfully. Beneath his back the sandy soil sifted, a pebble pinching his shoulder. Kakashi scratched idly at his scalp, considering.

The question, when it came to him, fell out of his mouth of its own accord: "Why did your family come to Konoha?"

It seemed an especially appropriate question now, surrounded as they were by brushy vegetation and the bone-dry sky. Iruka's supposed homeland was a world away from here, but it was because he was from "_away_" that this ruse could even be attempted. Iruka didn't usually seem all that different form any other citizen of Konoha, but sometimes the differences came out. Kakashi thought of the necklaces of water, and the little rain.

The question made 'Iruka' go even more quiet, if that was possible. Listlessly, it traced small circles in the packed earth, head bowed. Then finally, just as Kakashi was beginning to think he'd wasted a question, the clone signed a simple word: '_Refugee_.'

"Refugees?" There was a whole world of inquiry behind that repetition, but the clone only gave a little shake of its head. A long story, then, and complicated. Too complicated for a wordless conversation. But Kakashi warned, "I'm bringing this up again when you get back. You owe me."

'Iruka' gave him a snotty look, as though to say _'Yeah, yeah.'_ Then it shrugged, which Kakashi translated as _'It's not an interesting story anyway.'_

Right. The copy-nin doubted that, but it could wait for another time. He propped his head back further, pillowing his head in the cup of his intertwined hands. He requested, "I want another question to hold me over."

'_No fair, no fair,'_ the doppelganger was shaking its head, but the jounin blatantly ignored his silent protestations. Vocalizing contemplative sounds, he waited until he felt 'Iruka' was bristling sufficiently before he jauntily requested, "What is your favorite color?"

'_Pink,'_ the creature signed cheekily.

Kakashi castigated, "I'm adding it to the list: Sensei is also a liar. No, too late to change your mind now."

An easy silence spread out between them after that, like a net for catching calm breaths and comfortable feelings. It weakened only when Kakashi's thoughts turned somber and he murmured another question, "Why do you dislike me?"

'Iruka' blinked, but then its quicksilver eyes were boring downward again, wearing that intermittent flicker of shame it sometimes donned in its half-veiled expression. A sign was drawn in the air: 'A_nnoying_.'

It was an evasion. They both knew it. But in the quiet of the mood, the copy-nin was able to ask, "Does Iruka dislike me?" It alarmed him how much his voice made it sound like he cared.

The doppelganger shifted, turning fully away. But it answered with a shake of the head. No. No.

"Okay then," Kakashi said with a final sigh, relieved. He said, "Okay."

* * *

"Ha, I wrote you a poem," Kakashi declared, holding the crumbled scrap of paper at arm length. The idea had sprung from their half-serious reoccurring argument (which Kakashi had since privately named Iruka's porn-for-poetry crusade), in which the teacher attempted to convince Kakashi that there existed other literature worth reading besides romance novels.

Honestly, the chuunin might have better spent his time elsewhere, but nonetheless it had become a kind of preoccupation of theirs, and one that Iruka's clone had taken up with no less vigor. When he had pulled out a familiar vibrant volume, the doppelganger had shown tremendous and persistent displeasure.

This had eventually descended, incredibly, to a contest.

Kakashi had asked the clone skeptically, "You can't speak or write a simple message, but you can compose poetry?"

'Iruka' had signed, _'Skill,_' which Kakashi had taken to mean that poetry was more like throwing a kunai than language. It was something more directly from Iruka the person than Iruka the clone.

And if only because he was a little lonely for that more distant Iruka, Kakashi had agreed. For moral support, he exercised a little frivolity and summoned Pakkun to join the game. The rules were simple: write a poem of any kind that described the other person.

Now the clone was looking at him doubtfully across the ashes of their fire pit, but even so it propped its head up with a decent appearance of attention. Kakashi stretched his paper taught and read,

"_Sensei makes_

_students cower_

_and jounin wet their panties."_

'Iruka' responded with a snort of laughter, and Pakkun physically rolled on the ground, boiling over with mirth.

"It's a haiku!" Kakashi protested, ignoring the way his lips twitched just slightly at their edges. Not grinning, he told himself firmly. Not funny, no. He waved his assemblage of words at the creatures challengingly, "I'd like to see you do better."

'_Okay, okay,_' the clone was gesturing with its hands. Pakkun was still wheezing, "_Panties_" between his teeth as 'Iruka' handed over its contribution, chewing on its bottom lip. This time Kakashi followed the lines silently.

"_Silver_

_ghost-colored, mercurial –_

_you are the brightest pale._

_Like the sky curled up in moon_

_on reflecting waves."_

Pakkun grunted with amusement as he read the half-outraged sentiment that had built in Kakashi's face. "Better you stick with dirty limericks, haha," he mocked his master good-naturedly.

Irritable after being shown up even in a contest so ridiculously non-lethal, Kakashi nonetheless hesitated only slightly before pressing the folded paper with Iruka's poem into a pocket of his jacket.

The little pug, meanwhile, was offering up his own paper, which Kakashi took with a grimace. "Read it out loud," the dog requested, and so the jounin did.

"_You can tell their brains are made of lead,_

_Cause over the dumbest things they always butt heads,_

_With a sound like empty coconuts banging together._

_Just goes to show you that canines are better."_

"It's about both of you," Pakkun announced proudly. "Two for one. Ain't I a poet?"

Kakashi casually tore the pair of couplets in two, his eye glinting. Speaking for both himself and the clone, he warned, "I think you may have outstayed your welcome, _friend_."

Almost on cue, 'Iruka' leaned forward as though it were about to pounce, and Pakkun yelped. Darting backwards, he growled at them, "You two have no sense of humor!" Then he dismissed himself anyway, a wise move.

The jounin wished him good riddance. "An irreverent summon to join my irreverent students. What do I have to do to get a little respect anyway?"

The clone snorted, but thankfully couldn't properly respond. The light was just beginning to weaken, and the being was making to get up and begin the evening chores when Kakashi stopped it with an outstretched parchment fragment. 'Iruka' looked at him inquisitively.

"I came up with a better haiku for you," Kakashi explained, gesturing for the double to take it. He waited with feigned disinterest while the Iruka's eyes flicked over the short verse.

"_An unexpected danger_

_Comes like a butterfly_

_But with fangs."_

'Iruka' stared at it, smoothing it carefully with its fingers. Then it gave the barest of nods. Kakashi took this as a sign his gift had been appreciated.

* * *

Author's Note: Although the process of making these stories available again has been my pleasure, the review count of stories is still a major indicator that readers use to judge whether they will read a story. For this reason, I would very much appreciate if you would share your thoughts, even if your entire review is simply copying and pasting a line that stood out to you. Thank you very much.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

_Iruka was grading papers in the late afternoon when a certain blonde appeared suddenly on his casement, rattling the window pane as he forced it open from the outside. "Hi, Iruka-sensei," he greeted as he stuck his head through._

"_Hello, Naruto." Iruka put his pen aside, and propped his chin in his palm with a smile._

_The genin clamored inside without invitation, hopping lightly to the floor. Sometimes the teacher wondered why Konoha even bothered with such deterrents as doors, second story windows, and locking mechanisms; even the rawest academy student lost their sensibility for them._

_The boy – who was really more a young man now, the teacher reluctantly admitted – went to pour himself a glass of juice before dragging out a chair from the table. He informed Iruka, "He hasn't given up yet."_

"_Kakashi?"_

"_Yeah. He keeps asking questions about you. It's pretty weird."_

_Iruka snorted. "Your new sensei is a bit of a stalker. One of his least charming pathologies, I think. And he's not very subtle about it either."_

_Naruto nodded his agreement, smirking. "He underestimates you," he commented. "Though to be fair, I think Kakashi-sensei is more the fighting type of ninja. You should see him." The young man beat the air with his fists, imitating the lifelike swishing and maiming sounds of the invisible debacle. Almost begrudgingly, Naruto confessed, "He's pretty cool."_

_Frowning slightly, Iruka shifted the papers on the table absently with the heel of his hand. "I've never seen him like that, but I'm sure Kakashi is an impressive warrior." He grinned lopsidedly. "He is, after all, the legendary copy-nin."_

_Naruto stared at him for a long moment before throwing a gangling arm around his teacher's shoulders. "Ah, Sensei, I still like you best."_

_Joking or not, Iruka warmed. Teachers inevitably harbored a left-behind feeling, and he appreciated the assurances. He didn't want to loose Naruto._

"_I think he's lonely," the boy said suddenly, a touch of sadness in his voice. It didn't take much to connect the words to the man. Kakashi._

_It was a very astute observation. Iruka gazed at him proudly; Naruto had grown to be such a compassionate young man._

_The teacher considered. His own life was full of children. They depended on him to give advice, to cut the crust off, to scold bullies, to beat their little heads around simple lessons. He loved his job and his kids, but for a long time he'd had little else. He had few adult friends, and while the casual observer might argue that Kakashi wasn't much better than a five-year-old, Iruka had different memories._

_Of a frozen gloaming, and tents in shadow. Empathy. It made him think maybe he was willing to take a chance on the copy-nin. Lonely?_

_Grinning shyly, Iruka confided, "Maybe me too."_

* * *

As time passed slowly in a reel of days, one of the lingering questions that grew with their acquaintanceship remained: what was so different about Iruka-sensei's doppelgangers?

Kakashi examined this subject one afternoon as they reclined under the gruff but friendly Kurrajong. Above them the clouds drifted in a sky that was grey-blue like an inverted sea, preoccupying Kakashi with the wakes of cloud moving slowly past.

'Iruka,' meanwhile, sat hunched over a small knotted cord that Kakashi had given it to unravel. It was a training exercise, almost a game, but the clone was taking it very seriously. Kakashi watched it scowl ferociously as it studied the puzzle, knowing better than to offer assistance. He'd already tried once to take the rope away and just demonstrate how to unbind the knot, but the thing didn't just _look_ like Iruka. Stubborn, stubborn.

"I need to have to talk with the Hokage about you," the copy-nin began conversationally. "I mean, I know that technically the Tojou Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is forbidden, but enough people know it these days that she should be aware of any odd –" The doppelganger looked up at him with Iruka's brown eyes, lively and intelligent and wholly aware. Kakashi finished carefully, "deviancy."

'Iruka' just grunted, refocusing on its task.

Out of curiosity, the jounin had tested his own clones to see if they showed as much personality as this one. Unfortunately, it had been an inconclusive experiment; the double he'd summoned had spent most of the time looking fatally bored. Possibly this meant Kakashi's clones were nothing out of the ordinary, lacking initiative, mere bodies. Or perhaps it had just been channeling his lazy side.

"Ibiki would be fascinated," Kakashi commented, almost to himself. "But he kind of scares me."

Shivering, the clone nodded.

Which was interested. "You spend much time with him?" the jounin asked.

'Iruka' shrugged, which Kakashi took to mean 'Relatively,' or possibly, 'None of your business.' It was hard to tell when you were communicating with someone's shoulder. He resisted a latent twinge of exasperation; not being able to speak certainly made it no easier to plague Iruka for answers.

Finally, the double held up the loose bit of string. It beamed, and Kakashi couldn't help but be amused by how delighted it seemed by the achievement. After that there was much pushing, prodding, and frowning as the clone pressed the rope back into his hand for retying. Obligingly, Kakashi took the cord and stroked it smooth, starting on another complicated loop and furrowed structure.

"Keep this up and you'll be ready to test for jounin," he teased good-naturedly, but Iruka frowned at him seriously, shaking his head. Kakashi took the refusal in stride, though for a moment his fingers stilled around the knot. Just once, he'd asked Iruka why he'd never advanced further in his training.

'_Throat slitting does not a jounin make,'_ the teacher had responded. Then, he'd added, _'And…better I wasn't distinguished anyway, Kakashi.'_

The copy-nin had understood what he hadn't said as much as what he had. Iruka didn't believe he had the skill to sustain a higher rank, and possibly he was right. Moreover, ability was only part of the equation. Jounin was a state of mind, and the teacher had made his choices long ago. He'd be a chuunin for the rest of his life, probably. However long or brief a time that might be.

Yet if the limitation ever bothered him, Iruka didn't say so. He was a unique person anyway, the warrior school teacher. He teased the clone, "Considering who you're made of, I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that you're really weird."

There wasn't the immediate scowl he'd expected, and the jounin noticed that the clone didn't seem to be paying attention. The ring of hemp forgotten in his lap, he asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"

A slight shake of the head, but the troubled look didn't pass away. 'Iruka' was casting his eyes around in a subtle swing. His companion joined him, stretching out with his senses. There was a dull thrum at first, nature alive with all its little jolts of charka. Instinctually his mind filtered out the ones that couldn't bleed, but even so it took him a moment to realize what had bothered his companion.

Tensing, he gently probed the pockets of _absence_ rather than presence. Ah…

The moment they had to react was almost insufficient. It was impulse rather than skill that made him snag 'Iruka' by the shoulder and jerk him away from the tree, a gut reaction that had them hitting the ground in a cloud of grit just as a burst of flame erupted where they'd been. Then the air was full of splinters, and their camp was alive with moving bodies.

Assailants, three, it became apparent. They went straight for a death stroke, but sloppily. One lashed out hysterically towards the jounin's face, barely grazing his chin, and Kakashi had time to see the cheap charka-dampening tag bound on a pendant around his neck like a good luck charm.

The frenzy of the attack, the feel and smell of warm blood, made Kakashi suddenly think about the fragility of clones. Naruto's doppelgangers were like matchsticks; they never lasted long. He had even teased the boy that one of his greatest assets in battle was lack of visibility from all the smoke dissipating. Then, it had been funny. Now, it made every nerve ending in his body come on alert.

Where was Iruka?

A sound behind him, a familiar growl. One of their attackers had the clone backed up against the tree. He caught its eyes just as the clone struck the man with a carefully controlled strike to the throat, dropping the bandit like a stone. Wide brown rings, panic: _'Look out, Kakashi!'_

The jounin swiveled like a dancer, and then his assailant crunched with splintering bones and very likely a growing regret. They were third of fourth generation charka-users without any training, bullies who used their latent strength to murder and steal. Today they'd chosen the wrong camp.

Not feeling particularly threatened, it took Kakashi by surprise when the clone suddenly barreled into him. Struck off balance, he began to say, "Iruka –" but then there was a throwing knife like a death-bringer. Towards Iruka's throat rather than his own neck.

In a motion to fast too see, Kakashi snatched the blade out of the air, a finger's width from the clone's artery. Even as he did, his momentum was moving him past. He had the last invader pinned against the tree in the time it took the unfortunate to rattle out his last breath. Then his spine separated with a soft sound and Kakashi let him go, panting harshly.

Between his fingers, blood dripped around a serrated knife.

A hand touched his elbow, and he turned to face his unharmed ally. The clone was grinning, unfazed by what had happened. Adrenaline still burning, Kakashi didn't fight the fury that flared up inside him.

Angry, he gripped 'Iruka' by the collar, demanding, "What were you thinking? Don't you know you'd go up like smoke?" A weak voice chanted denial somewhere in the back of his head – _'Clone. It's just a clone'-_ but it was overwhelmed by the echo of a blade in the air, and the soft thump of a recently dead body slumping to the ground. Lividly, he shouted, "Don't be so suicidal!"

The clone freed himself with an awkward jerk. It gripped it's own neck, gesturing at Kakashi. As though that excused it. As though saving him from some minor knick justified such stupidity.

"I'd have been fine, unlike you." The words left Kakashi rashly, _"I can't watch you every minute!"_

Infuriated in his own right, Iruka's double stomped its foot: _'You shouldn't have come, you shouldn't have come.'_ At least a lazy, self-serving insentient wouldn't have thought Iruka needed a babysitter. In the heat of the moment, Kakashi's furor reared up in agreement; better that he had never come.

"You're just a chuunin," he hissed, and in that moment, with his blood rushing in his ears and his heart pounding crazy fear, and his hand wet with blood from far too close a call, he didn't know quite who he was talking too. The mirror was too good.

Iruka's face was set in lines – hard and hurt. It jerked a finger at him fervently, and Kakashi could practically hear its declaration: _'I don't need a protector. Who do you think I am?'_

Unrepentant, the jounin set his face like a rolling storm, still angry, too angry. 'Iruka' saw it too, and slowly its eyes shifted from blazing to disappointed. It gave him one last _look_ – _'You stupid ass'_ – and then left down the path to the spring so that Kakashi was left by himself in their camp, now a dusty, torn-up trampled with strangers' footprints.

Almost unsteadily, Kakashi lurched toward the lone tree, bracing himself against it with one hand.

The poor Kurragong looked splintered, and blackened at the base where the burst of heat had scorched the scaly bark. There wasn't much chance he and Iruka would be sitting beneath it any longer. Kakashi cursed, himself and nature and that damned thing – _attachment_.

Everything that lived eventually died.

* * *

It was dark when 'Iruka' returned to camp, long after the cool shadows had crept up and Kakashi had resorted to a blaze of dry wood to keep his melancholy from swallowing him like a physical presence. The clone slipped into the firelight with a crunch of footfalls, dropping beside the silver-haired nin.

A restless fidget betrayed its unease, and when Kakashi deigned to face it, he was met with an expression thick with unhappiness. It was a look that clearly stated, _'You're mad at me.'_

Kakashi wouldn't deny that he'd been angry. He _was_ still mad, but the adrenaline had slowly dissipated. He'd had time to realize how ridiculously out of proportion his reaction had been. They'd been ambushed by a handful of smalltime murderer-thieves; embarrassing, but hardly life threatening. That wasn't the real issue.

The real problem was that he was still treating Iruka as though he were breakable, and that crossed a line that would effectively destroy any hope of real friendship between them – between him and the real Iruka.

Fighting down the surge of bile that rose in his throat, Kakashi cursed himself again, wondering when he had allowed himself to care so much about this _thing_ and its origin. Head bowed, he admitted, "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

'Iruka' nodded firmly, but in the place of indignation was concern. It placed a warm hand carefully on Kakashi's forearm. _'Are you okay?'_

"You scared me," the copy-nin admitted. "I know you're just a figment, that you only _look_ like him. But if they'd managed to destroy you…" He trailed off, disgusted. What a ridiculous conversation.

However, 'Iruka' smiled at him out of his eyes. Touched, grateful.

Kakashi wasn't soothed. Around him the darkness seemed to trespass, partner to his dark rumination. His thoughts were muddled. "Do you remember asking me about this?" he queried suddenly, tracing his eye beneath the metal plate with the pad of his thumb.

When the clone affirmed him, Kakashi continued, "I was cold before then, but that was the easy part. After Obito died, I remembered what loss felt like, and that was harder. Caring about people is hard." He stared rigidly at the glowing ash, burning with a memory. He inquired, "Do you remember your father well, Iruka?"

A quiet, hesitating nod.

Kakashi snorted bitterly. "It's amazing how many orphans there are, isn't it? Our people die at the hands of the enemy, and those that survive, we shame into the grave."

'Iruka' wouldn't even look at him then.

Kakashi finished, "You'd have liked my father, Iruka. You'd have appreciated his philosophy and the reason they killed him." His voice tapered off, and he felt unexplainably heavy. His head sunk against his chest. "People are cruel."

Poke.

Worried, the clone nudged him with sharp fingers, leaning forward in an attempt to peer into the jounin's face. It was funny how much a wordless conversation could say. An odd smile crept up on Kakashi, and he wondered if he were going crazy. That happened to men stuck alone on islands. What about one stuck in the desert with a ghost?

He wagered, "You know all about how cruel life can be, don't you, Iruka? I'm sitting here waiting for you to come back from a mission that may end in torture for you, whatever blather the Godaime gave about it being purely for information."

'Iruka' vacillated for a bit, before nodding. It bit its lip. Maybe.

The jounin continued, looking at his companion with admiration. "You know all about caring about people, too. You challenge things." It seemed like such simple statement, but it was essential Iruka. He murmured, "It's no wonder you sympathize so much with that ramen-grazing brat."

It was good to see a break in the storm. 'Iruka' smiled, donning what the jounin had mentally dubbed his Naruto-face. It was affectionate with just a hint of pride. A very parental look, really. Iruka and the kyuubi vessel shared something unique – not brotherhood, exactly – but something like it and all their own. It was enough to make Kakashi a little jealous, honestly. His own family…his father.

'Iruka' slumped against his shoulder with a sigh, as though to say, '_Isn't life difficult._' It was such a contrast to the cold shoulders and heated arguments of their early days together that Kakashi covered his face, rumbling with laughter. When the clone turned its face up inquiringly, he told it, "I think I'm growing on you, hm? You haven't committed an act of violence in days."

The being huffed, rolling its eyes in a very graphic '_Just wait_,' but it was a different kind of threat than before; it was the kind a friend made.

'Iruka' grimaced into his shoulder as the jounin teased him and Kakashi felt certain that something had changed. All while he remained internally mystified that one could grow so close to someone while they were so far away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_Kakashi's quarry was working peacefully at his desk when the jounin encroached upon his classroom window, which was currently propped open to let in the breeze. Discretely, he took in the hunched back, the crinkle of parchment, and the soft humming._

"_Sensei!" he hailed, secretly delighted when the younger shinobi startled with a flurry of papers. His face full of false reprobation, the jounin tsked. "You should be more aware of your surroundings, Sensei."_

_Iruka sorted his scrambled work. His look of annoyance, however, was poor concealment for the quirk of amusement he harbored. He greeted, "Kakashi. Are you here for something particular, or just some general malice?"_

_Kakashi's smirk grew. He requested, "Walk with me?"_

_Konoha was a rambling city. Drainage pipes meandered along the sides of haphazard apartment housing, while green things grew out of roof singles and cracks in the aging plaster. Above them, stretches of laundry bridged the upper-levels, navy blue mixed unevenly with patches of civilian garments._

"_You're a hard shinobi to come across, sensei," Kakashi began once they were on their way. "I check the school and they tell me you're at the mission desk. I check the mission desk and I'm told that you're tutoring. I peer over the civilians and get smacked with a broom for asking scary questions about beloved Iruka-sensei."_

"_Yes, the grandmas of Konoha are very fearsome, shinobi or no," Iruka intoned. _

_Kakashi coughed, unperturbed. It always pleased him when Iruka failed to withhold his dryer sense of humor._

_The teacher continued, "But I should be spending considerably more time at the academy. It's almost time for mid-term evaluations."_

_He seemed happy talking about his students, but personally Kakashi liked Iruka best out of context. There were times it seemed as though Iruka-sensei was never without a handful of papers or an armful of brat. It made him seem slightly dislocated now, like a plant that stood out better against a different wallpaper._

_In the lull, Iruka asked, "How goes the world of the great copy-nin?"_

_Kakashi felt a touch of umbrage at the sardonic tone in the other's voice, as he always did when Iruka used his title to address him. Still, he answered, "Very like always. Busy. Tsunade is a hag."_

_Iruka just nodded. The easy agreement would almost have been funny, but by now Kakashi knew that Iruka and the current Hokage had a complex relationship which to define as "rocky" would be an understatement._

_The two oddly matched shinobi wandered comfortably under the colorful tiles, footholds, and vandalism of their labyrinthine home. A game of tag was interrupted in their passing, and the children called out, "Sensei!"_ _Their teacher waved._

"_So what's this about?" Iruka remarked as they moved away, passing under a patterned awning. "Still trying to root out my air of mystery? I'm really not that complicated, you know."_

_Kakashi answered more or less frankly, "You're a preoccupation."_

"_Naruto claims you want to be my friend, and that being a nuisance is your socially challenged way of expressing it," Iruka suggested, utilizing one of his favorite methods: the blunt presentation of something that Kakashi didn't know that he knew._

"_Naruto is a vomiting babbler with no sense of decent intelligence," the jounin retorted._

"_Hm. I think you underestimate him," the teacher disagreed. Obliquely, he added, "After all, he's made some interesting observations about _you_."_

… _What exactly did that mean? Ill at ease, the copy-nin shifted._

"_It's unsettling to wonder about, I know," Iruka sympathized._

_The jounin rolled his eyes. He was going to eat Naruto._

"_So is that what this is about? Iruka pressed. "Being friends?"_

_It was such a straightforward, unexpected question that Kakashi momentarily balked. He paused to consider his motivation. He _had_ friends, but a shinobi's life was different. He thought that maybe it was because Jounin walked too close to the veil, ever aware that the next time one heard from an acquaintance it might be a funeral notice. It lingered in the back of him whenever he was with these "friends."_

_It was in their eyes too: restraint._

_He had no idea how Iruka defied that instinctual filter. How he allowed himself to bring the weakest and most vulnerable so close to his heart. Without even a twinge of denial, Kakashi would admit that such as risk would surely break him. However, Iruka held onto things. He brought people close._

_Was it was selfishness, greed that made Kakashi want to find his way into that circle? Did he want to 'be friends'?_

"_Yes," it came out without thought or explanation – a simple statement of fact. Slightly stunned by his own bluntness, he repeated himself, "Yes."_

_Iruka responded by gazing at him for a long moment, just looking. Then he smiled, the deliberately cryptic one that drove the ninja in Kakashi crazy._

"_Well, okay then."_

* * *

On day eleven, the doppelganger began to seem restless. The pleasant smile that Kakashi had grown used to faded. That night Kakashi came up beside the clone to find it looking into the southeastern sky, purple and red like wine with the dusk.

"What is it?" he asked, facing the horizon. "Is something wrong?"

'Iruka' looked at him and ducked its head. Kakashi was discomforted by this strange behavior. It added to the stirring of concern already awake in his stomach since the rendezvous date had passed. He asked, "Is Iruka alright?"

The being shuffled, its eyes suddenly brimming. Then it turned back to the horizon.

Something _was_ wrong. The sickly certainty had barely pervaded Kakashi before he was taking a step toward the west. But before he could go further, hands were gripping his arm. He looked back at his captor and the clone shook its head, though moisture still clung to its eyelashes.

Kakashi couldn't help but grasp the message. He breathed, "Okay, Iruka."

He'd wait. And pray that he wouldn't regret it.

* * *

It took him three more days to come to terms with what he had to do. Three days of watching his companion dissolve into a distracted, shivering mess, hardly able to keep its eyes off the westward sky. Of frightened, wordless looks and whimpers at night. Three days of knowing that something had gone terribly wrong.

After that, there came a point where Kakashi could no longer honorably abide by Iruka's wishes.

During the past days, he had more than once attempted to set off, but each time he'd been drawn back by his partner's ghost. Unable to break away, he'd attempted to reason with the double, but when he'd tried 'Iruka' ran a single finger down the inside of his arm. There, beneath the fabric of Kakashi's shirt, was a long scar, and it reminded him of the last time he had compromised one of these missions.

"He could be dying," he'd pleaded for understanding. "I could save him."

'_You could die.'_

"You can't exist apart from him, you know," Kakashi tried.

But the double was unmoved. How could one be selfish unto oneself? Iruka, all of Iruka, would accept death rather than risk another's life. It was a part of his nature to protect, to value others above himself.

Finally, in his growing desperation, Kakashi came to his wretched conclusion. If he tried to leave, the doppelganger would resist, and any strong counter would leave the being like dust; it would flicker out like a candle. And while that shouldn't have mattered – because it was a clone, a _clone_ – somehow it seemed too much like murder now. 'Iruka' barred the exit.

"You thought of that, didn't you, Iruka?" Kakashi growled into the morning. The double was still curled near him, warm as an infant bird with heartbeat just as fragile. "You thought I wouldn't be able to destroy a creature with your face so easily. You devious bastard."

He rested his chin on his folded hands, his eyes hardening. "But you overestimated me."

* * *

'Iruka' followed him guilelessly, head low and consumed by whatever far away thoughts preoccupied it. It looked up, though, when Kakashi stopped by the splintered tree, shoulders tense.

"It's been unexpectedly nice getting to know you. Or else, the part of Iruka you are," the copy-nin began, and the double offered him a smile. It made a hand signal: _comrade_. This made Kakashi's throat clinch.

"I didn't set out to like him…_you_ that first mission. I just wanted to see what made you tick." He paused. "Things are different now. You're the strangest shinobi I've ever met, Iruka, but you've grown on me. And I'm not going to let you die."

The clone looked at him without comprehension, perplexed and still sorrowful. It flinched when Kakashi took a step forward and placed a hand on either of its shoulders. However, it didn't pull away.

Quietly, Kakashi said, "I'm sorry."

With those words his hands slipped upward, gripping the doppelganger's chin and neck. A sharp jerk and a resounding snap as bone split apart. There was the briefest impression of wide eyes, incomprehension, shock. Then nothing, a haze, smoke in his arms.

There was no body left sprawled across him, no head lolling awkwardly against his shoulder. Only a dissipating smell like chalk and yellow tendrils that snaked through his hands and then turned transparent in the early morning air. No body, dead-eyed, to cry out betrayal.

But somehow having nothing to hold on to only made Kakashi feel more bereft.

He left almost immediately after that, destroying all traces of their presence with an experienced ease and passing away into the shadow like a thought. The comfortable camp was mist behind him, the spring and the tree. It was like returning back to life after a pleasant dream – he felt invigorated, vividly alive – but also, somewhere core deep, he ached.

Viciously, Kakashi squelched the sensation of mourning working inside him. He would not grieve for phantoms, neither the dream or the reflection of his friend. 'Friend?' he castigated himself. How could one befriend a clone? It was foolish to even dwell on it.

He doubled his speed. The real Iruka was out there tonight, very likely suffering, not expecting rescue. Long past his due date. However, Kakashi knew Iruka was alive because the clone was alive, or else it had been until he killed it. He had orders to return home, but Kakashi had always been particularly unsuited for this kind of mission. Experience said fourteen days. After that it was too late for rescue.

But Iruka was alive, and to Kakashi, alive meant there was hope.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Finding the compound hadn't been difficult.

Trusting him not to intervene, Iruka had not kept his destination a secret. Now that he was here, Kakashi looked down upon the little enclosure of buildings and frowned with disquietude. It was nearly deserted. There was no sentry at all, and though he could feel the faint pulsing charka signatures of people inside the various structures, there was no wariness at all in them. This illusion of complacently made the jounin uneasy.

No self-respecting ninja base would keep their compound so slackly defended, far less one that was currently holding a prisoner. There had to be something to this that he couldn't see. All of his senses warned him to stay away, that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. But.

But Iruka was there somewhere, amidst that collection of little presences. He turned to face the main building, three stories high with scrolling rafters. A veritable mansion. It oozed sinister. If a detainee was anywhere, it would be there.

"I'm coming, Iruka," Kakashi whispered. Then he peeled off his hitai-ate to awaken the swirling sharingan and abandoned the boughs.

* * *

There was no resistance to his intrusion when he entered the house. He'd searched with excruciating care for the sensors he'd expected to be crowded in every niche, but there were none. There were no traps, no sentries, no sound.

He moved like a vengeful spirit down the wide passageways, so fleetly that he was like a flicker in the periphery of an eye. His muscles rolled beneath his skin and his mind raced ahead, watchful. In that moment, he was everything his life-time of training had precipitated – predator, a precision instrument, savage.

But on a mission of a paradoxical kind. He was here to save, but he dared anyone to challenge him along the way. He'd be moving too fast to even feel the heat of their blood.

He'd just rounded another corner when the aberration stuck him. Wildly, his sharingan pulsed and swirled, and Kakashi pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to get a grip on what he felt. It was…an amalgamation, a murky, pulsing nebula of charka from different sources, though, incredibly, centered on one place. One person? No. Such a thing was as impossible, like having two hearts.

There wasn't time to come to any firm conclusion, however, for even as he wondered the abyss opened up and answered him frankly. It came like a disembodied voice, almost femininely high and cracking with an impression of age:

"_Well, so you've finally made it."_

Automatically, the Konoha nin sunk more deeply into a crouch, his body tense with waiting even as his eyes flickered, seeking his quarry. A chuckle echoed softly in the chamber, amused by his disorientation. It was almost out of pity that the creature stepped out of the shadow, a bent-over form swathed in an overlarge lab coat.

The man greeted Kakashi, "There you are. I was beginning to wonder if you would come after all, the way you lingered outside my wall."

Hunched shoulders rose above a clearly misshapen body. One eye was a watery blue, but a bulb of shinning flesh protruded from the other socket, hollow and white. A Hyuuga eye; it couldn't be mistaken by anyone who'd ever seen one, even mounted so unnaturally. Patches of skin in differing colors seemed crudely sewn to his body, and there were nodes protruding like tumors from the back of his neck. He was a melted tuber of mottled flesh and visible veins. It was horrifying; there was no more appropriate word to describe it.

Repulsed, Kakashi involuntarily recoiled, revulsion dawning across the planes of his face.

"Does my appearance startle you?" The creature gave a low, rattling laugh. "Yes, there are those that revile me. But I am actually quite a beautiful example of human engineering." His moist nostrils heaved. "I've been waiting for you."

The jounin twitched reflexively, and he continued, "Oh, don't be so surprised. I knew you before you even stepped foot in this place. You shine stronger than any concealment could hide, at least from _me_. I'm more interested in what you're doing here. Surely you're not after that lamb in my workshop."

Workshop? Iruka was here. This man had him.

If possible, the mass of a man's smile widened, splitting his head like an over ripened fruit. "I'm Bukakkou Ookami," he introduced himself. "And you _are_ here for him. How perplexing. Would you like to tell me why?"

Kakashi remained stony, flexing his muscles as he took in this new foe. The sharingan whirled madly, darting. Bukakkou gazed at it complacently, until finally he sighed and gestured with a hand as he maneuvered his misshapen body back down the hall.

"I wouldn't have expected the great Hatake Kakashi to broadcast so much. But if you're so eaten up with worry for him, then come along. This is bound to end unpleasantly for you, but you might as well be content with this part of your mission at least."

Everything in his body revolted the notion of following those waddling steps further into this elaborate noose. Every instinct he had ever cultivated screamed dissent. But he also sensed that this creature had not lied to him yet, and that Iruka really was cloistered here somewhere down that hall. So he went, his legs moving heavily. After the wolf.

* * *

Bakakkou lead them down the channel of wood into the structure's heart, then through a reinforced metal door, strange in it's ancient frame. All along the way Kakashi searched for others, scanned for eyes. None. He was alone with this man.

"Where are your men?" he spoke for the first time. It was just one thing that was deeply wrong. The report had estimated at least two dozen, but even the little lights outside didn't account for that number.

Bukakkou shrugged one sloped shoulder, so that his veined, mottled skin stretched. "Not many have a stomach for my work," he explained, and coughed a harsh sound that might have held some raw amusement. "There are a few nin here; three, actually, all mercenary. The rest are servants, men without much future. Criminals, debtors, the disturbed and deviant. For little enough pay they stay by me without knowing what they truly support. And I am generous with my specimens and always share. Indulging their depravity is cheap."

The man lead him down a final corridor, sheeted with metal. At its end, the corridor opened into a large workroom, filled with machinery. Metal tools lined its walls like disembodied teeth. And damp, it was damp in here. Kakashi noticed the stark contrast from the outside immediately.

"Ah, here we are. My cubiculum." Bakakkou spread his stunted arms in an almost welcoming gesture. "I have been transformed behind these walls, and so have many others." His voice died away in the expanse as though swallowed. However, amidst the immensity was one anomaly.

Faintly, Kakashi heard the sound of labored breathing.

At room's furthest end, there was a gunnery smelted to the floor beneath a harsh overhead light. Trancelike, Kakashi moved toward it, only dimly aware that the beat of his own heart was filling the soundless room, overwhelming even the terrible, gurgling breaths.

Bukakkou had no such qualms about approaching the table, which had all the look and feel of an alter meant for sacrifice. He checked a chart impartially. "Two more seizures in just the last three hours. Oh dear. That isn't good." He addressed the still body. "We may not have much hope of finishing your program."

Kakashi's eyes enveloped the person who lay helplessly attached to the smooth metallic surface, held stationary by heavy straps. The body was tense, eyes sealed closed, and he sounded as though he were swallowing air rather than inhaling it. Drowning.

Iruka.

Bakakkou spoke, "The truth of it is that there wasn't much to gain with this one – nothing to amputate at all! It was a shame, but we did find out some interesting things about the No. 76 serum, didn't we, my lamb?" He turned then to Kakashi, and made a helpless gesture. "I have so little raw material these days. I have to be careful. And this one nearly killed me! Can you imagine?"

Kakashi could. He knew Iruka.

"I have appreciated his company," Bukakkou went on, almost conciliatorily. Kakashi's rage rose bright between them, and Bukakkou cocked his head, the protruding eye gleaming grotesquely. "What? Would you like him back?"

"What are you?" Kakashi demanded, though his mind had already supplied an answer: Monster, a true abomination. He felt sorry he had ever having bestowed such an underserved title upon Iruka's clone.

"I'm a scientist. Someone who has improved human life," the man answered him with complete sincerity, even as he stared out of his soulless, drooping white eye that didn't rotate, blink, or cry. "Under my knife have come many powerful nin of many nations. I've transplanted muscle, bone. I've dug the very channels of charka out of people's bodies! Oh, not for power. Power is a construction of the weak-minded. For knowledge, for _improvement._"

He finished, somehow contorting his grotesque body into a half-bow. "I take the best of them. I am their compilation."

The art of Ninjutsu was obsessed with the body; its physical condition, its limitations, its pathways and secrets. Bloodlines and blood limits. Training, supplements, and the living charka. That it consumed so many with a fanatical need to butcher and exploit in the name of research and advancement wasn't surprising. But it made Kakashi ill to see nature so contorted.

Kakashi's revulsion must have been clear, because Bakakkou threw his shriveled hand out, puncturing the air with a long, knotty finger. "You have no right to judge me," the scientist burbled, high and rasping. "You, Sharingan Kakashi, who bares an Uchiha eye. Transplanter. Hypocrite. We are not so different."

Kakashi's mismatched vision moved beyond the bloated horror to the cicada-shell body curled on the steel surface. Bound, broken apart. And held down by those stained, strained constraints. His heart palpitated wildly with horror and nausea seeing the physical evidence of what had been done to Iruka. He thought, _'No, I am not like you.'_

He made a determined movement towards the table, but was stopped by the sudden presence of Bakakkou directly between them. He was surprisingly fast. Almost regretfully, the scientist shook his head, "I'm afraid that won't do. I've allowed you to see him, but neither of you are leaving here. Imagine what I could cut out of you."

The copy-nin's anger had for a long time been welling up from deep down, like a reservoir of bubbles at the bottom of a kettle ready to boil in an instant. His growl drew from this deep, explosive well of righteous fury as he snarled, "You've made a mistake."

This man had taken his partner, committed unspeakable tests upon him, and now left him on that gurney as though death were waiting nearby. He stood there, baring his teeth in some parodiable grin, as though chipping at the foundation of nature was something to be taken lightly, as though he were unconnected to his crimes. All of this he had hitherto done with immunity, but no more.

Kakashi spread his arms like justice unfurling its wings. Pale in the dim light, he must have seemed ethereal, like a ghost and just as insensitive to bargaining or excuses. His hands flashed with metal.

With the façade of one completely unimpressed, Bakakkou watched his adversary rise to confrontation. Unflinchingly, he met the roving red sharingan piercing him hatefully, and warned, "This will kill you. Better to submit, and I'll take away the pain."

Kakashi retorted fiercely, "Better to die now than to waste away in pieces, pinned to your table."

"Still conflicted about _him_, are we?" And the scientist still seemed genuinely surprised. "How sentimental you have turned out to be. But don't worry. While the gurgles and writhing they do close to death is always distressing, it means he hasn't much longer to suffer." He cocked his head. "Does that comfort you?"

A furious cry flew from the copy-nin's lips, and he launched himself at his adversary, releasing his handful of jagged edges. They whistled like the death they were, but only to embed themselves in the floor. Bakakkou moved backward with an agility his shape beguiled. Yet even so, Kakashi was already behind him, a charka reinforced knee heading straight for the creature's distorted neck.

Unfortunately, breaking Bakakkou in half would not be so easy.

In a swirl of white coat, the creature turned, capturing Kakashi's intended blow with the palm of one meaty hand. The gnarled knuckles tightened around the bone of his leg as Kakashi's eyes marginally widened with incomprehension; even blocked his blow should have crushed his combatant's hand.

Hissing a soft, almost patronizing laugh, the man informed him, "I have engineered this body from the sturdiest shinobi on this earth. I have reforged my own charka, reformed by own joints. So press upon me with your petty, inborn strength. But I suggest another route, hm?"

His last words were accompanied by a shove of such great force that Kakashi's body was hurled towards the far wall. Instinctively, the jounin redirected his momentum, flexing his knees to take the brunt of the impact. Around him, their field seemed barren of options. There was no earth here for him to manipulate; the world was metal and varnished wood. It was large, but not large enough to take full advantage of his speed.

Meanwhile Bakakkou seemed to move without moving. His charka burned Kakashi's senses with the panorama of alternating current. The sociopath really had transplanted other channels. Even as he realized this, there was a roll of foreign charka. Kakashi's head throbbed with it, and he suddenly realized that blood was oozing from his left eye socket. It burned, blurring his vision.

"Have you heard of the Ikanoborifrom cloud?" Bakakkou inquired, his arms moving in strange, willowy patterns. "They use their hands to push the air. Their hands and spirit."

The firmament responded in a whirl, an incredible drawing up of the air in a gushing, cyclical rotation around the contorted scientist. It slipped past Kakashi's cheeks with edges, sharp enough to draw blood. He tasted it on his lips as the skin split from the sudden change of pressure.

In an effort to keep himself from being tossed into the air, he directed much of his charka to his feet, but even so they were slipping. He'd never seen such a hurricane of control. His sharingan buzzed, but he made no attempt to copy it. He could sense that this was more than just a technique. Transplantation. Amputation. There was a physical element. Shinobi from Cloud had died for it.

Bakakkou cackled like a madman, his flighty, inconsistent voice carried over the pervading din. The wind wailed and he beckoned it closer, flaring out his lab coat so that his thick, knotted body could be vaguely seen, an amorphous sack of flesh and surgical scars.

"Are you ready, Konoha?" He called, a ringing whine over the mixing currents of air.

The attack came like a expulsion of breath – warm and cold and smelling like flesh and human bodies and hidden places. It lashed at the arms Kakashi threw in front of his face, fissuring them with ribbons of blood. Driven back, he lost his breath in the cone of propellant, rush, and noise. It rent his clothes and clubbed his ears. There was no where to run away. It enveloped the whole room.

With incredible willpower, Kakashi reached for his hip pouch. Outracing or outranging his creature seemed impossible, so he would accomplish this with a more archaic method: he would drive a blade through the cords of his neck or deep into one of his larger arteries. But in the panorama of sound and the sting of his already injured eyes, Kakashi had lost sight of Bakakkou. One moment he stood there with his washed-out blue eye watery and wild. And then…

When doom descended upon him, Kakashi barely felt it. He didn't have time to even arch his back or rotate his head, and then there it was, the press of two fingers. A mere tap on the ridge of his spine.

It was like being stung with static electricity, a bite of briefest pain – then nothing.

His hair stirred wildly, driven by the continued current of air, but every living nerve in his body was in a rigor, frozen in a paralysis that, struggle as he might, he could not break.

"That uncomfortable feeling you noticed was the sensation of the synapses in your brain switching off," Bakakkou explained at his back. "Your legs, your arms – they are sending messages to your mind, but they aren't being received. You may feel a slight pressure."

And suddenly Kakashi _did _feel it, the vice around his chest, the sudden feeling that he was trying to breath buried under a pile of stones. He physically felt his heart pounding in great, deliberate, slowing measures. Even now his vision spotted white; he gasped, gagged.

"Yes, your heart too," the scientist oozed, his curved nails pointing as he prepared a final blow. "A pity, you'd have made a beautiful subject to take apart, but then, we can't always have what we want, can we?"

Kakashi was a strangling flame, a dying moth. His heart was being squeezed, his vessels, his body stalling.

Bakakkou raised his hand, murmuring, "A sharingan from a non-Uchiha. Won't I be famous…"

Yet even as the finishing blow arched downward, Bakakkou was suddenly driven sideways by a fist of water that materialized out of thin air with a crack of forming ice. Kakashi's head snapped up, and he gasped like a landed fish. Stiffly, his limbs moved, and wonderingly he following swirling crimson to the source of the faint burst of trembling charka. His breath caught when he realized who had saved him.

There at the far side of the room was the third living being among them. His straining hand trembled, but incredibly, Iruka had worked his way onto one elbow, his palm extended. Barely conscious, he faltered, lips bleeding where his gritted teeth had punched through.

Seeing him awake was like oxygen enlivening Kakashi's muscles. How good it was so see those brown eyes, even ringed with so much pain. The chuunin was alive enough to fight. Fierce Iruka-sensei.

Bakakkou was not so pleased. Fists clinched, he squealed with outrage, "You are a finished project!" It was alarming to see his blotchy face turn livid, teeth glinting. Then, with a eruption of spite, he belched lethal fire towards his errant specimen. Iruka was still restrained, helpless, unable to do anything but watch it come.

Kakashi's hands formed the signs without thinking. Rain, he thought, and the world came apart.

In an immeasurable instant, all the moisture in the enormous room, every vapor, every trickle of water was drawn from the humid air like a tide of ending. It roared, flowering upward in a horizontal pane with Kakashi's guiding charka, a crashing curtain that drew itself down before the chuunin. The flames hit it with a tremendous hiss, just long enough to envelop them in a great plume of steam, and then it was water around their ankles, a leftover flood.

Bakakkou shrieked, eye bulging. Veins protruded. The pink weal of a mouth split down the side of his head, and Kakashi realized suddenly that he was tormented by the sudden complete dryness of the air. His nostrils were red as flares, his natural eye red with burst vessels. He flailed at an enemy he could not fight.

Kakashi didn't give him the opportunity to reorient.

A sudden crackle of a electricity was born among the remaining incredible combination of dry and flood. It was chidori and a rain, concurrent forces. Like a hammer of justice, Bakakkou felt the decent. Then he was nothing but a crackling mass of burnt flesh, and behind him the wall laid in an equally indistinguishable rubble of destroyed wood and twisted metal.

Exhausted to his bones, his head throbbing, Kakashi spat over the corpse of an enemy he had hated as he rarely did. He had been as bad as Orochimaru, if ultimately less dangerous. He was almost even more perverse: a mediocre horror.

Turning, he lurched towards the end of the room. "Iruka," he called when he was close enough to be heard. Reaching out, he pressed his damp, clammy hand against his partner's forehead. Weakly, he pleaded, "Iruka."

It was like a hesitating incoming tide, those eyes. Sluggishly they parted, revealing roving brown that seemed to hardly know where they were. Slowly, they focused on him.

"Hey," the jounin greeted him. His insides twisted at the expression of evident, staggering pain he could sense. The incomprehension was almost worse. But Iruka did not disappoint him. The haze cleared, and recognition burned then between them.

Iruka's face twisted with emotion as he formed the words, "Have you even _heard_ of emotional detachment?"

Kakashi's laugh was a harsh and involuntary thing. He smiled with his whole face, both glad and sad. He retorted, "I did try it once, but it didn't work for me."

Iruka nodded, and the creases of his eyes were wet with moisture. Hoarsely, he admitted, "I'm glad you came."

* * *

Kakashi liked to visit Iruka in the hospital. The teacher couldn't get away from him, and it was amusing to watch him writhe helplessly in embarrassment and indignation when Kakashi got to the really juicy parts of _Ichi Ichi Paradise_ _v.__08: Schoolteacher Scandal_! It was hard to imagine why. He'd often heard that it was kind to read to invalids.

Naruto was another frequent visitor, after the security clearance had been lifted and the teacher had been moved from the depressing underground intelligence compound to a regular room. He brought pork ramen and armfuls of wildflowers with spines on them. And he castigated Kakashi endlessly when they ran into one another: "Quit being so mean."

Iruka, for his part, seemed to be taking the whole process in stride. He had technically failed his mission, very nearly died, and had spent much of his early recovery being interrogated. However, this seemed to be much in the way of things, as he had confided to Kakashi under heavy sedation.

"_This happens,"_ he'd said, still wheezing at that point. He'd said, _"It's okay. This happens."_

It had sort of made Kakashi want to destroy something.

That he had stuck around brought some attention, most notably from Konoha's Head of Intelligence and Iruka's direct superior. When Iruka was finally being transferred out to the regular hospital, Ibiki had stopped by to supervise (read, _loom_) while the chuunin was discharged, standing near Kakashi. The jounin remembered the conversation vividly:

"_You've been lingering, Kakashi."_

_The copy-nin answered the challenge. "I have."_

_The taller man shifted. He was an imposing figure, and few could claim to have the slightest comprehension of his nature. He'd asked, "Has Iruka-sensei told you that I've known him since he was…I suppose, fourteen?"_

"_No."_

_The interrogator surprised him then. He said, "He could use a good friend, Kakashi. Sometimes the most beloved are also the ones most overlooked. You should be careful, though. We're all temporary."_

_Information and a warning. It seemed very like Ibiki._

_However, Kakashi had already __decided__. He'd said, "I'll risk it."_

"What are you thinking about?" Iruka interrupted his rumination. The bed-ridden young man was fluttering the leaves of one of Naruto's spiky flowering weeds. They sat in a window box open to the sky – equinox blue; it was practically summer.

"Oh," Kakashi muttered, deliberately propping his heels on the edge of the bed because he knew how much Iruka disapproved of that. "Human mortality. The inconvenience of it. Loosing things."

"Hm, deep thoughts for you." The chuunin leaned back against the pillow, relaxing as nearly as he could considering how easily he was still bruising these days; the headboard of the bed drew ridges on his back. "Though I suppose you'd have to deviate occasionally from pornographic daydreams and the generation of your so-called witty dialogue."

"I am a man of many talents," Kakashi agreed. "And I can multitask. Would you like to hear my witty commentary on _Schoolteacher Scandal_?"

Iruka grimaced with his whole body. "Decidedly no." In the lapse of attention, his hand strayed to scratch delicately at the interior of his left elbow, still a deep indigo coagulation of blood. They'd struggled to find somewhere to attach an IV when they brought him in; all his veins were collapsed with overuse.

"I gave my report to Tsunade," the jounin brought up. "She disapproved of the way I ended things. Sloppiness was the overt reasoning, but I think she may have been disappointed Bakakkou's research was inaccessible." He shook his head, disgusted. "Politics. I'm glad I'm not the Hokage."

"You're not ruthless enough to be Hokage," Iruka told him. His eyes seemed just slightly haunted, and Kakashi recalled that he had also had an audience with their leader. He said, "I told her what happened: that they knew me from the beginning. It took me a few days to realize, but by then it was too late."

Kakashi had heard all this before, or what of it Iruka would tell. It was a dark story.

"No one blames you." He assured. There had simply not been enough information. With a pit in his stomach, Kakashi thought of just how easily the chuunin could have died from that deficiency. His voice simmering on low heat, he rumbled, "They should be more careful with you."

"I'll be sure to mention that when I write up my official mission report," Iruka said, chuckling hoarsely and then coughing hard. He grinning afterward, rubbing his eyes, which were watery and irritated from the way it jarred his body, hacking like that.

Iruka might not mention it, but Kakashi would.

Keeping his tone light, he offered, "I also think we may have trouble getting approval for me to be your escort next time."

"That's because you're terrible at it," Iruka pointed out.

"Unfair." The copy-nin pouted deliberately. "You've survived both times, haven't you?"

"Narrowly," Iruka admitted, but there was only goodwill in his eyes. And it comforted Kakashi to see it. He'd saved Iruka.

Narrowly. Iruka wouldn't have made it back to Konoha with whatever potent toxin Bakakkou had used ravaging his system, and Kakashi had been forced to purge his system with a jutsu he'd been trained to use only in an emergency. It had been terrible to watch, and for a while he'd honestly believed he'd killed Iruka to keep him alive, but the chuunin had survived. As Tsunade had once so blithely said, survival was what Iruka was good at.

Yet even now, a few weeks later, he was still off his feet, fighting to recover. Of course, if he hadn't spent the first week with Ibiki instead of under a healer's care… Carefully, Kakashi set that issue to the edge of the burner for now.

"Konohamaru's coming by this afternoon," Iruka told him then, showing his companion a sheet of paper. "He sent a letter."

"Is that what that is?" Kakashi critically judged the blotched, indecipherable crumple. "I thought that was something you'd coughed on."

The teacher made a face at him. "Adults bear gifts of obligation. Children offer gifts of heart and time."

"Very poetic," Kakashi rolled his eyes.

But Iruka refused to be brought down by such an uncreative retort. "Why, thank you. But then, we already knew I was the better poet."

He said things like that sometimes, teasing Kakashi with what he might know about those eleven days. They had never discussed what had happened with the clone, or how it had "died." For the jounin's part, it still made him slightly nauseous to think about it, even with the breathing original right there beside him.

"You don't have to stay, you know," the teacher suddenly suggested. It was said with complete sincerity, something that Iruka had never seemed very able to hide. It was his eyes, Kakashi decided. Mute or not, Iruka said a hell of a lot more than ever came out of his mouth.

Right now, he was saying _'I won't be hurt if you leave,'_ and perhaps more faintly, _'You don't have to protect me.'_ Possibly true, but Kakashi was very all or nothing when it came to his choices, and he'd made his choice about Iruka.

"Naw, I'll stay," he brushed off the offer, leaning back further on the legs of the rickety chair.

Iruka just looked at him, as though for once it was Kakashi who was the puzzle. "Okay," he said finally. "But if you start reading from that filthy book again, I swear we'll both found out if I have enough charka stored up to manage a small paper-eating inferno."

Kakashi drew his hand over his left breast, where the book was hiding in an interior pocket. "You're cruel, Sensei," he murmured. "You'd strike at a man's heart?"

"Or else the nearest unguarded artery," Iruka agreed with his most harmless smile. A cool breeze fluttered through the open window, and he closed his eyes in the comfortable bed beside the nearby friend. "Thank you," he said then, for a lot of things.

Kakashi knew. He might have explained that he was also thankful, but trying to describe such things was too much work. "Yeah, yeah," he said instead. He looked as though he might drip off his seat, his limbs were so lax. "What else would I be doing anyway? _Working_?"

"Lazy," the teacher challenged fondly.

"Hm, "Kakashi answered, "There are worse things."

Like lonely, or cold. Neither of which he intended to ever be again if he could help it.


End file.
